Flowers have always been a special element in the traditions and culture of the peoples of the world - medicinal and poisonous, amazing in shape and unusual in color, rare and growing at every step - since prehistoric times they have been used in cult rites and religious sacraments. Some types of flowers grow on almost all continents, but individual representatives of the flora are so rare that they are considered the property of a particular area, becoming a symbol of the country and the entire nation.
Rare red flowers - symbols of the states of Australia
Large red flowers Waratah (Telopea speciosissima) is a large shrub or shrub of the Proteaceae family, a symbol of New South Wales in Australia. Telopea grows up to 4 m in height and about 2 m in width, and its inflorescences reach about 10 cm in diameter and consist of approximately 250 individual flowers. Blooms bright crimson in autumn in the form of a large ball or cone in the undergrowth and in sunny clearings.
Local aborigines have always considered Waratah a totem and used it in ritual ceremonies, creating legends about the beautiful flower. An ancient tale tells of a beautiful girl named Krubi, who falls in love with a young warrior who dies in battle. Heartbroken, she dies, and red Varatah flowers grow at the site of her death. Due to its unusual shape, in the 19th and 20th centuries, the rare flower became a popular motif in Australian Art Nouveau, and since 1956, an annual flower festival dedicated to the amazing beauty of Telopea has been held in Sydney.
Desert pea - Swainsona Formosa or Sturt's Desert Pea - is the state flower of South Australia, famous for its blood-red inflorescences with black bulb-shaped centers. It is one of Australia's most beautiful wildflowers and is found in its driest regions. The red flower got its name from the Latin “formosa”, which means beautiful, and from the name of the English botanist who found it in 1699. Formosa's 9cm buds grow on 15cm vertical stalks scattered across a trailing stem that can reach 2m in length. In 1961, the red desert pea was proclaimed the state's floral emblem, being at that time already a widely used motif in the art of the Green Continent, as well as a decorative element in the work of the indigenous aborigines and part of their culture.
Unusually called Anigozanthos manglesii or Kangaroo Paw, which means kangaroo paw, was declared the state emblem of Western Australia in 1960. This one of the rarest flowers in the world blooms at the end of August and is characterized by its long grey-green stems about 1.5 meters high. On the initially “bald” tips of the kangaroo paw stems, from spring to late summer, two-color inflorescences gradually appear, resembling splayed fingers, in which green color amazingly turns into red.
The most beautiful flowers in the world - symbols of the countries and peoples of Africa
Little Zimbabwe managed to get a very beautiful and rare flower, Gloriosa superba, as a symbol of the country - the flame lily or tiger's claw, which was used in medicine in ancient times - both as a medicine and as a poison. This unusually beautiful plant is distributed over most of Africa and Asia and belongs to the category of climbers - sometimes it grows up to 2.5 m in height, and its bright red flowers with “ruffles” along the edges reach 8 cm. The main growing area of Gloriosa splendid is and sand dunes of Africa, but it is known in China, India and other regions of Asia.
The blood lily is extremely poisonous - its flowers, stems and especially its tuberous rhizome contain colchicine, a toxic alkaloid that can be fatal if an animal or person ingests the plant. In ancient times, a red flower, reminiscent of fire in its outline, was considered magical in many cultures of the world - it was part of religious rituals and sacraments.
Royal protea (Protea cynaroides) or giant protea - national symbol South Africa, compared to its 1,600 relatives, stands out in appearance for the considerable size of its flowers, which sometimes reach 30 cm in diameter. Possessing a thick, long root and large fleshy leaves, Protea is optimally adapted to the difficult climatic conditions of South Africa - dry summers and rainy, cold winters. Besides, a large number of The dormant shoots of the Protea root system make the flower so tenacious that it calmly survives numerous fires, being reborn almost immediately from the ashes.
The name of the flower comes from the many-faced Greek god Proteus and fits perfectly with the plant, which is distinguished by a wide variety of leaf shapes and colors. The hue of protea flowers varies from vanilla white to intense crimson and red, but the pink inflorescences are considered the most valuable. Stem unusual flower can reach a height of 30 cm to 2 m and produce 6 to 10 buds per flowering season. Such large ones are pollinated mainly by miniature sunbirds - Cinnyris chalybeus, Nectarinia famosa, Promerops cafer. A protected and iconic place for the Republic of South Africa, the symbol of Cape Town, Table Mountain, is famous for its National Park, where the beautiful protea lives in all its biodiversity.
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“In every home there is a place where they put unnecessary gifts: a cozy little box where ridiculous porcelain dogs, clumsy shepherdesses, cheap perfumes end their days - everything that will never be useful, but it’s a pity to throw away. Cities are worse off in this sense - sometimes they are given things that are awkward to show and impossible not to show. For example, monuments as a sign eternal friendship and deep affection" (Izvestia newspaper, 2006). Well, actually, in continuation of the Festival Ponds - a few photographs of the park itself and its monuments.
The popular park near the current Rechnoy Vokzal metro station has existed since 1957. The park was laid out as a sign of the eternal friendship of peoples in 1957 - the year it was held in the capitalSixth World Festival of Youth and Students. A good tradition of this festival was the opening of memorial alleys of friendship in the cities that hosted the festival. In Moscow, it was decided to lay out an entire park.
1. Archival photographs of the layout of Friendship Park. Photos from here . By the way, a great article about the history of the creation of Friendship Park in Moscow - the memoirs of one of the architects - V.I. Ivanov. When the trees were small.))))
2. The central monument of Friendship Park is, in fact, the Friendship monument itself. This monument appeared in the park in 1985.
3. Not far from “Druzhba” there is a small walking path along the shore of one of the Festival ponds. At the very beginning of this path there is a huge boulder on which there is a metal sign “Alley named after Alisa Selezneva.” Here is an image of the heroine of my childhood with the Talking Bird on her shoulder.
From afar, the granite stone with this sign looks a bit like a tombstone, so apparently I’ve already come across this place on the Internet with the description “Tomb of Alisa Selezneva.” The amazing thing is nearby, but in the vastness of the RuNet, it turns out there is even a whole fan club “Guests from the Future”. And their website is called Mielofon , in honor of the mysterious crystal that caused all the fuss in the film. By the way, there is also the history of the creation of this alley.
4. On the alley named after Alisa Selezneva, rowan trees named after Alisa Selezneva are in full bloom with flowers named after Alisa Selezneva.)))
5. Square near the Friendship monument.
6. Let's move on - Friendship Park has preserved the spent quarries of the Nikolsky brick factory. Some of these quarries were filled with water, now these are Festival Ponds. Two quarries are dry. One of them became an impromptu sports ground...
7. The other one, the one that is closer to the metro and smaller in size, is simply overgrown with trees.
8. Of course, Friendship Park cannot do without a peace tree. The Peace Tree is a relatively small chestnut tree with a plaque and a huge boulder nearby. The tree was planted by followers of the Indian philosopher and athlete Sri Chinmoy - in addition to poems and popular expressions, he is famous for lifting weights “in the name of harmony.” The Peace Tree was planted in 1993. 
9. Much more expressive than the tree of peace, a huge lilac bush blooms nearby. 
10. Well, and, in fact, monuments. Memorial plate to Afghan soldiers. Quite modest. 
11. Slightly wilted flowers on black marble. It's good that they still bring them here. 
12. Memorial stele to the feat of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War. The stella was donated to the city by Denmark and installed in the park on May 9, 1986. 
13. In 1990, another monument appeared in Friendship Park, kindly donated to Muscovites by Finland. The monument bears beautiful name- "Children of the World". True, the sign reminding of this was stolen by one of the visitors. And now, without identification marks, this extremely peculiar monument is associated with anything, but only with performance and the world. IMHO. 
14. I still don’t understand why exactly the monument was designed in this way. One of the “children of the world” is holding such a charming child, covered with chips, in his arms. 
There's probably a lot I don't understand about architecture.
15. Monumental and cumbersome, like the Hungarian “Icarus” accordion, the monument to eternal Soviet-Hungarian friendship rises into the sky above the park. 
16. Miguel de Cervantes, changed his Madrid residence permit to Friendship Park in 1981. Now he looks with longing in his eyes at the traffic jams of the Leningrad highway, clutching the hilt of a sword in his hand, which was also carefully stolen. 
17. A gift to Moscow from the people of India - a monument to Rabindranath Tagore was erected in the park in 1991. 
18. Sculptural composition by Vera Mukhina “Bread”. Two very undressed young ladies are holding a huge sheaf of wheat above their heads. 
19. One of the beauties. 
20. Another creation of Mukhina is a sculpture of fertility. A sitting girl and a young man are holding a dish with all sorts of different delicacies in their hands. Everything would be fine, but upon closer examination I was shocked by the size of the young lady’s feet. And so - against the backdrop of "Children of the World" it is simply wonderful.))))
In 1957, the World Festival of Youth and Students, the sixth in a row, was held in Moscow from July 28 to August 11. A traditional event and celebration of all five previous youth festivals was the planting of trees in the parks of the cities where the festivals were held, in memory of these unforgettable meetings. Individual trees were planted in Prague, Budapest, Bucharest and Berlin - symbolically from each continent of the world or delegation. In Warsaw, at the V World Festival of Youth and Students, the Alley of Friendship was planted. And here in Moscow they decided to build a whole park - the Park of Friendship!
This idea captivated us - Galina Ezhova, Anatoly Savin and me, Valentin Ivanov, young architects who only graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute in July 1956 and worked in the Department of the Chief Artist of the Soviet Preparatory Committee for the festival... it turned out that the location of the future park had not yet been determined. The drawing that was shown to us as a possible option was made for Poklonnaya Gora on Mozhaisk Highway... There are two more sites in mind in other parts of the city. We agreed to go together, with our main artist B.G. Knoblok, see Poklonnaya Hill, and areas in the area of the future Profsoyuzny Prospekt and on Leningradskoye Shosse, where opposite the park of the Khimki River Station there are old quarries of the Nikolsky Brick Factory.
After reviewing the potential sites, everyone unanimously came to the conclusion that best place for the future park than quarries filled pure water, separated by picturesque isthmuses and surrounded by hilly relief formed by overburden during their development, cannot be found...
We agree that the emblem of the Moscow festival - a festival daisy with five multi-colored petals symbolizing the 5 continents of the world - must certainly be reflected in the layout of the park and in its various spatial forms. Therefore, along the rhombus formed by two alleys running from the main square, we place 5 round platforms, united by a network of narrow walking paths - again symbols of the five continents, representatives of which should take part in the celebration of laying the park during the festival. We dream that subsequently, on each site, there should be sculptural compositions that, by the nature of their artistic solution and content, are in tune with each continent. Unfortunately, even today, almost 50 years later, this remains a dream, although more and more new sculptures and memorial signs unforeseen by our project at that time, constantly appear on the territory of the park...
At our construction site, there was only one team of landscapers from the Moszelenstroy trust of the then Moscow Landscaping Department, numbering ten people, headed by foreman Vitaly Ivanovich Shilov, and the equipment was only one old, constantly breaking down bulldozer. Of course, there was little energy for clearing the area of debris, for simple planning work on arranging lawns and for preparing planting sites for future memorable plantings. Therefore A.N. Shelepin instructed the Moscow Komsomol to take part in preparing the territory for the future holiday. And so, for almost two months, every working day, at about sixteen o’clock, a string of buses brought six to eight hundred Komsomol members to our construction site. Our task was to prepare the next front of work for them, which we, architects and builders, coped with quite successfully. The boys and girls worked for three hours with rakes and shovels, and then in orderly rows they went to swim in the ponds of the future park. And everyone was very pleased with what had happened...
The park's groundbreaking celebration took place on August 1, 1957 in the afternoon and attracted the participation of almost 5 thousand delegates, festival guests and numerous residents of the surrounding areas, although we had previously expected no more than a thousand. For many of them, especially representatives of the southern continents, our spruce and birch trees were exotic plants. They took great pleasure in planting them in the places we had prepared. Moscow pioneers gave them a solemn obligation to care for the planted plants, and the participants of the action left their names and addresses in plastic bags in the form of tree leaves.
When Friendship Park was created, there was no Levoberezhny district or metro in these places yet. Construction began here only a few years after the opening of the park. Now there are many monuments here.
From the estate to the palace and park ensemble: an architectural and historical cheat sheetCentral - « Festival flower" - appeared in 1985. On it, four-meter bronze figures of a young man and a girl release doves into the sky. The sculpture symbolizes a happy youth and a peaceful future.
At the main entrance to the park there is a monument to Hungarian-Soviet friendship by sculptors E.V. Vuchetich, Zh.K. Strobl. It was presented to Moscow by the residents of Budapest in 1976. This is a pair of monuments - its twin brother is located in Budapest.
In 1957, a revolutionary from Nicaragua, Carlos Fonseca Amador, visited the festival of youth and students in Moscow. A memorial sign was erected in his honor with the inscription in Spanish: Carlos Fonseca Amador. Founder of the Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua. I planted a friendship tree here during the VI World Youth Festival of Students in Moscow.
Also in the Park of Friendship there is a sculpture “Children of the World”, a monument to the writer and poet Rabindranath Tagore, a monument to the hero of the Kyrgyz heroic epic Manas the Magnanimous, a memorial plaque “To the Warriors who fell in Afghanistan”, sculptures “Bread” and “Fertility”, created according to sketches by Vera Mukhina after her death. In 1981, a copy of the Madrid monument to Cervantes by A. Sol came here, and a copy of the monument to Pushkin by O. Komov came to Madrid. Cervantes's sword turned out to be a weak point - in 2000 it was stolen. The monument was restored several times, but each time it ended with the disappearance of the sword. Therefore, we decided to leave it as is.
And the most favorite attraction of the guests of Friendship Park is the alley named after Alisa Selezneva. It was opened by a group of enthusiasts on October 6, 2001. The ceremony was also attended by the author of the book "Alice's Adventures" Kir Bulychev and actress Natalya Guseva, who played the main role in the film "Guest from the Future".
And in Friendship Park there are many ponds and bridges, there is a rugby and baseball field, where there are always many foreign guests. And on weekends, aircraft modeling enthusiasts gather in the park and organize competitions.
They say that......fans of Kir Bulychev’s work annually harvest rowan berries and make a tincture from them called “Alisovka”.
Friendship Park in photographs from different years:
Can you tell us something else about Friendship Park?Friendship Park is a small quiet island in the vastness of a noisy city. I suggest taking a walk through the park and exploring the local attractions. Using the description, you can easily find all the steps, and if you take a navigator, you will certainly find the secret place.
For more than half a century, residents of nearby neighborhoods have been coming to the park to spend time in the lap of nature and admire the numerous monuments. There are no eternal crowds here; unlike the central parks, the public is mostly calm and relaxed; they really come here to take a break from the metropolis.
Getting to the park is very easy, just get out of the last car of the Rechnoy Vokzal metro station, go behind the station lobby and you are already in the park. If you are driving, it is better to park on the opposite side of the park. There are numerous parking pockets on Flotskaya Street, and there is parking next to the city council (Flotskaya building 1). You can also come here by bicycle, and in winter, if the paths were not intensively cleaned, the route could be covered on skis.
The history of the park's creation dates back to 1957. The VI World Festival of Youth and Students was held in Moscow from July 28 to August 11. A traditional event of youth festivals was the planting of trees in the parks of the cities where they took place. Individual trees were planted in Prague, Budapest, Bucharest and Berlin - symbolically from each continent of the world or delegation. In Warsaw, at the V World Festival of Youth and Students, the Alley of Friendship was planted. And in Moscow they decided to build a whole park - Friendship Park. The authors of the project are young architects Galina Ezhova, Valentin Ivanov, Anatoly Savin under the leadership of the honored architect Vitaly Ivanovich Dolganov. Out of 35 options, we chose a location for Friendship Park opposite the Northern River Station. Here there were old quarries of the Nikolsky brick factory, filled with the purest water, separated by picturesque isthmuses and surrounded by hilly terrain formed by overburden during their development. On the territory of the future park, in addition to ponds and quarries, rural buildings continued to exist with personal plots and vegetable gardens of the village of Aksinino and Petrovsky settlements and three two-story standard houses with sheds. Therefore, it was decided to carry out the work that should be carried out for the festival on free territory, on an area of slightly more than 16 hectares adjacent to the Leningradskoye Highway. The site for priority development was not easy. Almost close to the highway there was a wood warehouse, to which there was a railway line. In the middle, the asphalt concrete plant of the Ministry of Aviation Industry was smoking. A second railway line ran across the site to the Nikolsky brick factory from the existing quarries, located several kilometers northwest of the territory of the future park. And all this had to be gotten rid of. Some of the work to put the territory in order was carried out by Komsomol members. After school, the boys and girls worked for three hours with rakes and shovels, and then in orderly rows they went to swim in the ponds of the future park. And everyone was very pleased with what had happened. The park's groundbreaking celebration took place on August 1, 1957 and attracted the participation of almost five thousand delegates, festival guests and numerous residents of the surrounding areas. For many of them, especially representatives of the southern continents, our spruce and birch trees were exotic plants. They took great pleasure in planting them in the prepared places. The festival delegates planted about three thousand trees. The landing was quite successful, but in the evening the weather began to deteriorate - it began to rain, which shortened holiday program, apparently nature itself decided to take part in the holiday and abundantly watered the newly planted trees. Friendship Park arose several years before the start of construction of the new residential area of Khimki-Khovrino and was almost fifteen years ahead of the construction of the metro line with the terminal station “Rechnoy Vokzal”, the southern ground entrance of which is located directly on the territory of the park. When residential buildings were built along the new Festivalnaya and Flotskaya streets, the park, along with its green spaces, was ready to receive visitors. This is how the first phase of the park was created. Only many years later the area of the park was expanded, ponds were built in the quarries, the banks were surrounded with monumental concrete slabs, and openwork bridges were built across the channels. Friendship Park is figuratively divided into two regular parts, closest to the Leningradskoye Highway with the main entrance, founded when the park was laid out with numerous species of trees and cultural compositions, and a later landscape with decorative ponds surrounded by hills and vast meadows. There is also a reserve area of the park, the farthest from the highway and not yet developed. The park's plantings are based on Norway maple and linden. There are many larch, poplar, spruce, pine, birch and chestnut trees, as well as many different shrubs and other vegetation. Not long ago, groups of young lush spruces, larches and other types of trees were planted.
We will begin our journey from the core - the base of the park, a clearing framed by a round walking path, the coordinates of which are given in the heading of the cache. The main axis of the park, oriented towards the Northern River Station, runs here. Five fifty-year-old linden trees were initially planted in the circle, dug up in front of the northern entrance of VDNKh, which, according to the authors’ plans, symbolized the five continents of the world, and in the center was an eighty-year-old oak tree transported from the nearby Khimki Forest Park. Friendship Park is a place that unites the peoples of the world. There are monuments to national heroes in the park different countries, steles and compositions reflecting the friendship of peoples. I suggest that you first take a walk along the ground floor of the park and examine the works of art of the sculptors. Before moving closer to the Leningradskoe Highway, we will examine the largest central monument of the park, rising on a high embankment.
Step 1. Monument to Hungarian-Soviet friendship. The sculptural composition, opened on September 15, 1976, is a 10-meter high architectural and sculptural structure in the form of a curved stele. On the inside of the arrow there is a bas-relief made of ceramic tiles. It consists of two female figures personifying the friendship of two fraternal peoples: Russia and Hungary. Female image in sculptural art it is most often used to personify nations, the Motherland and relationships between peoples. The girls' hands flew up in a joyful, friendly outburst. Under the bas-relief is the inscription: “Eternal Hungarian-Soviet friendship is the guarantee of our freedom and peace!” Above the girls are depicted flying doves - a symbol of peace, and even higher - a five-pointed star. The friendship between Russia and Hungary is also reflected in the choice of material for the monument. The entire monument is covered with pyrogranite tiles. This ceramic material is produced only in the Hungarian city of Pécs. In April 1975, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the liberation of Hungary from fascist invaders by the Red Army, Friendship Park was laid out in Budapest and a monument to Hungarian-Soviet friendship was opened. The idea of creating this monument and developing the preliminary design belonged to E.V. Vuchetich and the Hungarian sculptor J.-C. Strobl, however, was not destined to realize his plan. After their death, this was done by the Hungarians - the sculptor Barna Buza and the architect Istvan Zilahi. In a day grand opening monument, the residents of Budapest decided to donate a copy of the work to the residents of Moscow. Exactly a year and a half later, a “twin” of the Hungarian monument appeared. The monument became the dominant feature of the park, although it does not reflect the original concept and blocks the perspective; they decided to install it here, since the friendship at that time between Hungary and the USSR was very strong. Let's return to the circle, go to the next step along the right path, turning in the middle towards Leningradskoye Shosse.
Step 2. Monument to Rabindranath Tagore. The figure was installed in the park in 1990. The creator, the famous Indian sculptor Gautam Pal, depicted the poet quite realistically. Stand in the place where the poet is looking, feel the gaze of a wise oriental man on you. Undoubtedly, the heavy monumentality of the monument is mesmerizing. Rabindranath Tagore (1861 -1941) - Indian writer, poet, composer, artist, public figure. He became the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his deeply felt, original and beautiful poetry. Tagore began writing poetry at the age of eight. At the age of sixteen, he wrote his first short stories and dramas, and published his poetic samples. Having received an upbringing imbued with humanism and love for his homeland, Tagore advocated the independence of India. He founded the Visva Bharati University and the Institute of Agricultural Reconstruction. Tagore's poems are today the anthems of India and Bangladesh. Tagore's poetry, rich in its stylistic diversity from classical formalism to the comic, dreamy and enthusiastic, has roots in the work of Vaishnava poets of the 15th-16th centuries. Tagore wrote eight novels, many novellas and short stories. Tagore's music is inseparable from his literary works, many of which - poems or chapters of novels, stories - were taken as the basis for songs. Tagore composed about 2,230 songs and painted a lot. Tagore is the author of about 2,500 drawings, which participated in exhibitions in India, Europe and Asia. Tagore traveled widely. Visited more than thirty countries on five continents. Many of these trips were very important in introducing his work and political views to non-Indian audiences. Tagore gave Indians faith in their language and in their cultural and intellectual heritage. Let's walk along the path parallel to the Leningradskoye Highway towards the central axis of the park. Closer to the highway there is one of the most beautiful compositions.
Step 3. Sculpture “Bread”. The sketch of the sculptural composition was created by the famous sculptor Vera Mukhina, the author of the monument “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”. The first composition “Bread” embodied in bronze is exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery. The sculpture depicts two girls holding a sheaf of ears of grain on their shoulders. The artist will be able to achieve song-like rhythm in the beautiful figures, calm faces and smooth gestures of women. Almost fucked up bodies, a touch of solemnity in noble poses - before the eyes of the viewer there will be a transformation of everyday hard work into a holiday. The artist deliberately moves away from specific types, from plot genre motifs associated with mowing, sowing or threshing. “These two girls are not just showing off,” writes art critic Nina Dmitrieva, “holding a lush sheaf with their chiseled, flexible hands. The first girl, naked, seems to pass this burden on to the second and at the same time straightens up, the second takes the sheaf on her shoulders and bows her head under its weight. The composition of the plastic masses is such that our gaze then follows down, and another sheaf, placed diagonally between the female figures, again turns it to female figure, and we feel her straightening up again. Thus, bending and straightening, effort and relief alternate continuously, and in this the music of labor sounds, but free, harmonious labor. Young bodies are alien to any softness and smoothness; the tension of action is felt in them, but at the same time the grace of freedom and ease.” Many art critics consider this composition to be one of the sculptor’s best works. Sculptor V.I. Mukhina, as well as her students and associates N.G. Zelenskaya and A.M. Sergeev, architect I.E. Rozhin. On the other side of the park axis is the second composition of the same series.
Step 4. Sculpture “Fertility”. An oriental girl and a guy with a naked torso are holding a large basket of fruit on their shoulders. The sculpture represents an allegory of the joy of satisfaction from a bountiful harvest. “Bread” and “Fertility”, as well as the sketches “Sea” and “Earth” were created by Vera Mukhina in 1938-1939 to decorate the Moskvoretsky Bridge near the Kremlin, but later they decided to abandon the idea of sculptures. The compositions were successfully exhibited at the World Exhibition in Brussels. Opposite the sculptural composition there is a memorial sign to the Nicaraguan revolutionary Carlos Fonseca Amador, who died in 1976. The founder of the Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua planted the Tree of Friendship here during the VI World Youth Festival of Students in Moscow. In Nicaragua, Carlos Fonseca is a national hero, the founder of the overthrow of the dictatorial regime of the Somoza dynasty. A mausoleum of Carlos was erected in Managua. Let's continue our walk along Leningradskoye Highway towards the city center. On the left, another masterpiece awaits us.
Step 5. Monument to Cervantes. In 1981, during the days of Madrid in Moscow, the opening of a monument to Cervantes took place. The sculptor is a copy of the monument by Antonio Sol from 1835, sent in response to the gift of the monument to A.S. to Madrid. Pushkin by Oleg Komov. Cervantes is depicted in the noble ceremonial robes of a knight. Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) - known as the author of one of the greatest works of world literature - the novel “The Cunning Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha.” Miguel's literary activity began quite late, when he was 38 years old. The first work, Galatea (1585), was followed by a large number of dramatic plays. In 1604, the first part of the novel “The Cunning Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha” was published, which had enormous success in Spain and abroad. From then on, Cervantes’s literary activity did not stop: between 1604 and 1616, the second part of Don Quixote, all the short stories, many dramatic works, the poem “Journey to Parnassus” appeared, and the novel “Persiles and Sichismunda” was written, published after the author’s death. " Global significance Cervantes is based primarily on his novel Don Quixote, a complete, comprehensive expression of his varied genius. Conceived as a satirical chivalric novel, this work, perhaps even independently of the will of the author, turned into a deep psychological analysis of human nature, two sides of mental activity - noble idealism, but crushed by reality, and realistic practicality. Since the opening of the monument, vandals have been constantly stealing his sword, which they no longer try to restore. Look around, did you see the rider?! Let's go to him.
Step 6. Sculptural composition “Manas”. Gift of Kyrgyzstan, opened on February 24, 2012. Bronze sculpture of an eastern hero sitting on a horse, created according to the project creative group under the direction of Zhoomart Kadyraliev and cast in Moscow. Manas (IX century) is a folk hero of Kyrgyzstan, a symbol of the unity of the Kyrgyz people, the spiritual wealth of Kyrgyzstan, the hero of the epic of the same name - a hero who united the Kyrgyz people. From childhood, Manas possessed unusual qualities; he differed from all his peers in his extraordinary physical strength, mischief and generosity. His fame spread far beyond Altai. Having grown up, Manas fights for the survival of his people, fighting the thousands of troops of the Kalmak hero Neskara. Having united all neighboring peoples and tribes, Manas wins a brilliant victory. Having appreciated the merits of the young hero, seeing him as their protector, many Kyrgyz clans, as well as neighboring tribes of Manchus and Kalmaks, decide to unite under his leadership. Manas is elected khan. After some time, Manas enters into an unequal battle with the Uighurs and wins. Manas decides to return to the people the native lands of Ala-Too, captured by the enemies of the Kyrgyz. Gathering an army, he enters the battle and wins. The Kyrgyz decide to migrate from Altai to their ancestral lands. The world knows many more stories about the Kyrgyz hero, thanks to the epic about Manas, which has more than half a million poetic lines and is one of the longest epics in the world. To get to the next composition, let’s return to the path and go 80 meters deeper into the park.
Step 7. Sculptural composition “Children of the World”. A gift from the city of Helsinki by sculptor Antti Neuvonen, installed in 1990 in response to the sculpture “World Peace” by Yu. Kiryukhin that we donated to the Finnish capital. The monument is part of a modified copy of the sculptural composition "Monument of Friendship of Peoples", originally called "Friends and Men of the Village", installed in Friendship Park in the city of Helsinki in 1983 to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Finnish-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance of 1948 . The composition represents a meeting between the inhabitants of a small village and the liberators, and the part given to us personifies a Finnish family, made in the author’s characteristic style. The composition is cast from bronze, the base is made of stone. Antti Nuvonen (1937 - 2011) Born in 1937 in Vyborg, a former province of Finland. Known as the author of nature-themed images on Finnish coins. In 1971 he was awarded the Finnish State Prize visual arts for a series of abstract sculptures. Member of the Association of Finnish Expert Sculptors. Winner of numerous awards and competitions. Now we have to walk a little deeper into the park. We walk towards the metro. Approximately opposite the station lobby, a little to the left, when looking from the lobby, in a large clearing there are two more interesting places.
Step 8. Commemorative stele “Danish gratitude to the feat of the Soviet Union.” The memorial sign, a gift from the Danes, was installed on May 9, 1986 in the depths of the park. This gift was presented to the Soviet people in memory of the exploits that the Russian soldier accomplished during the Second World War and in honor of his immortal feat and the liberation of the world from the Nazi invaders. The trapezoidal bronze stele, not tall in size, bears reliefs that are picturesque in composition: on the front surface there is a girl planting flowers, and below there are five obelisks crowned with five-pointed stars, according to the number of years of the war. On the back side there is a field of eared grain and a dove hovering over it. Typologically, the monument is very reminiscent of a tombstone, which, however, is typical for war memorials, especially on a small scale. The authors of the monument are the Danish sculptor E. Frederiksen and the Moscow architect A.F. Markin, with the participation of the artist-architect S.I. Smirnov. Not far from the stele is the “Tree of Peace”. This is a free-standing young chestnut tree. Next to the chestnut tree lies a large round boulder with a memorable inscription: “Tree of Peace.” Planted on May 9, 1993 in honor of the World Peace Run, carrying the ideals of Peace, Unity, Concord and Harmony. Included as a peace monument in the UN International Peacekeeping Program “Sri Chinmoy's Inflorescence of Peace”. The tree was planted by followers of the Indian philosopher and athlete Sri Chinmoy - in addition to poems and catchphrases, he is famous for lifting weights “in the name of harmony.”
In this part of the park we examined all the significant objects, although I have no doubt that over time their number will increase, if only because not far from the monument to Monas there is a foundation stone for the sculptural composition “Astana”, and behind one of the quarries they wanted to erect a monument to memory killed in Afghanistan, but limited themselves to a memorial sign.
Let's walk deeper into the busy alley of the regular park and come out to the landscape component of the park. Birch alleys begin here. On the left there is a quarry, not filled with water, which is used as a sports ground for such rare sports in Moscow as rugby, as well as American football and baseball. In winter, an ice skating rink is built here with a warm locker room and skate rentals, and music is played. Let's walk along the alley between the quarry and the fence of the park's mechanization service and turn left at the first intersection. After 80 meters and on the right we will see a short alley of small rowan trees.
Step 9. Alley named after Alisa Selezneva. The alley is dedicated to the heroine of Kira Bulychev’s books from the “Alice’s Adventures” series in the fantasy genre for children, teenagers and adults, describing the adventures of Alisa Selezneva. The books in the series were written by the author over several decades, starting in 1965. The series takes place in a science-fiction future at the end of the 21st century. The main character is Alisa Seleznyova, “a girl from Earth”, the daughter of biology professor and director of the CosmoZoo zoo Igor Seleznev. Each of the stories is dedicated to a particular adventure of hers in space, on Earth, in the past, or even in a fairy-tale world. A number of books were filmed not only in the USSR, but also abroad. Fans of books and films decided to immortalize the “guest from the future” and create a meeting place by planting a rowan alley on October 6, 2001, on their own, not far from the school where “Alice” studied. The organizer of the action is Denis Murashkevich, the husband of Natalya Murashkevich (Guseva), who played the role of Alice in the film. The event was attended by writer Kir Bulychev. In front of the alley there is a memorial stone, on which there is a metal plate with the name of the alley, the date of its foundation and a stylized drawing with the image of Alice and the Talker bird on her shoulder. Alley's birthday is celebrated on the first Saturday of October. There is a tradition that originated at the suggestion of Kir Bulychev: annually harvest rowan berries and make a tincture from these berries called “Alisovka”. The recipe for “Alisovka” can be found here: http://www.gib.su:8080/alisovka/. Not far from the memorial stone there is a tall sculptural composition, let’s approach it.
Step 10. Landscape-Memorial ensemble "Festival Flower". The sculpture was installed for the World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow in 1985. The composition of the ensemble - converging from different ends of the park to the central round area of the alley - expresses the unity of youth from all countries of the world. The main element of the composition is a four-meter bronze sculpture located in the center of the round platform. A young man and a girl are hovering above the five-petaled flower, the symbol of the festival, with branches in their hands releasing doves. The pedestal for the sculpture is a granite-clad elevation, shaped like festival symbols. At the base there are five bronze medallions according to the number of continents of the world with the image of a flying dove on each of them. The authors of the project are sculptor A.I. Rukavishnikov, architects I.N. Voskresensky, Yu.V. Kalmykov, D.I. Voskresenskaya. The platform ends on each side with an amphitheater. Thus, the “Festival Flower” ensemble organized the connection between the park layout and the reservoirs and became the new compositional core of the park. Next, I suggest you take a walk along the picturesque ponds, climb decorative bridges, breathe in the air, the noisy roads are behind you and nothing else prevents you from enjoying a natural oasis, specially created for the relaxation of city residents.
Step 11. Festival ponds. They consist of seven ponds with a total area of 9 hectares. Six of them are connected by ducts, through which four openwork bridges are thrown. The seventh pond is rectangular in shape, apparently designed as a fountain. The ponds were formed on the site of old exhausted quarries. The Nikolsky brick factory was closed only in the mid-90s; it was located between Avangardnaya Street and Leningradskoe Highway. Now there is residential development there. On one of the ponds there is a large virgin island, popularly called “Duck Island”; you can only get to it in winter, since only a few people dare to cross the pond in summer. Despite the fact that the ponds were concreted, over time the bottom became covered with a layer of silt, which had a beneficial effect on the fauna. Now here fishermen come across rotan, crucian carp and carp. Until the 90s, the pond had a boat station and was very clean for swimming. Apparently, there are springs in the pond, since there is a current under the bridge, and in the northern part, next to the Parus cafe, there is a drain, according to some sources into the underground collector of the Norishki River. Along the banks of the pond, shady alleys pleasantly spread their charms; it is so pleasant to stroll along the beautiful banks of the reservoir, stand on openwork bridges, and admire the landscape views.
Of course, the park in its current form does not fully reflect the authors’ intentions. On its territory, on the opposite side of the metro station, a district party palace was created, now the district administration; next to the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God, multi-storey monsters of dormitories of Moscow institutes were erected, which are now separated by the temple from the park; in the middle of the green spaces, a vast territory of the mechanization service is fenced, and in the reserve Hundreds of garages have been built throughout the park. However, the space made it possible to accommodate: an amusement park with nostalgic carousels, a large children's playground and even a circus tent.
For those who find the park small and still have energy left, I suggest taking a walk through the “French” park near the River Station, the spire of which is decorated with a star that was installed on the Spasskaya Tower in 1935 until it was replaced two years later by the current ruby one.
Literature: “Northern District of Moscow” edited by E.N. Machulsky. Internet: http://wikimapia.org; http://www.liveinternet.ru/community/1861315/post69953381 ; http://ru.wikipedia.org; Alice Alley:
The creation of the Friendship Park, covering an area of about 50 hectares, was timed to coincide with the VI World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow. Until 1957, on the Leningradskoye Highway opposite the Northern River Station there was a vacant lot with the remains of rural buildings on the site of the village of Aksinino, with a wood warehouse and railway lines to the asphalt concrete and Nikolsky brick factories.
After the end of the Second World War, a world conference of youth for peace was held in London, at which it was decided to hold international festivals under the slogan “For peace and friendship!” The program included political seminars and discussions, concerts, sports competitions, and the festivals opened with a colorful procession of participants. The symbol of the youth forum was the Dove of Peace, painted by Pablo Picasso.
The main youth forum of the planet came to the capital of the USSR after Prague, Budapest, Bucharest, Berlin, Warsaw, and in each of the cities that hosted the World Festival of Youth and Students, delegates planted trees in parks and squares. Moscow supported the festival tradition by greening the northwestern outskirts of the city.
The park project was developed by a team of young architects, recent graduates of the Moscow Architectural Institute. For Valentin Ivanov, Galina Ezhova, Anatoly Savin, this was the first independent work, completed with the tactful participation of Vitaly Dolganov, who headed the design workshop for landscaping Moscow. In particular, according to Dolganov’s project, an observation deck was built on the Lenin Mountains, and his services were awarded the Order of Lenin. The master’s professional advice was useful to the youth, who were given complete freedom of action.
The creators of the park also collaborated with the architect Karo Alabyan, who at that time was developing a detailed layout of the new streets, which in 1964 received the names Festivalnaya and Flotskaya. On December 31 of the same year, the Rechnoy Vokzal metro station, built according to a standard design, opened for passengers on the territory of Friendship Park.
Friendship Park and Festivalnaya Street. 1965-1967: https://pastvu.com/p/22315
Well, in the spring of 1957, young architects pushed their project through the authorities. The architectural and planning solution differed from the neighboring park of the Northern River Station, located on a flat terrain.
Ivanov, Ezhova and Savin defended the preservation of the picturesque landscape with hills and ponds. Only in April the executive committee of the Moscow City Council approved the plan and a team of landscapers from the Moszelenstroy trust began practical work with the support of hundreds of Komsomol members brought to the site by buses with shovels and rakes.
In Friendship Park, paths and squares were laid out, benches were installed, bridges were built across the canals, and 500 birch, linden, maple, larch, chestnut and coniferous trees from nurseries were planted. Five fifty-year-old linden trees symbolized the five continents, and in the center stood an eighty-year-old oak tree from the Khimki Forest Park. The main decoration of the park was flower bed- the emblem of the World Festival of Youth and Students is a daisy with five multi-colored petals.
Let me remind you that at that time the surroundings of the River Station were a village mixed with an industrial zone and, in order to retouch the unsightly reality, the organizers painted blank fences with images of young people of different nations walking towards the park with seedlings, watering cans and shovels in their hands. This was probably the first domestic graffiti, and legal one at that.
The park's opening celebration took place on August 1, 1957, with a huge crowd of people. About a thousand trees were stocked for planting, but there were five times more people willing to take part in the gardening. The delegates left notes with their names on the seedlings and, after completing the honorable mission, were treated to wine and fruit, which were distributed by young men and women to national costumes peoples of the republics of the USSR. But the amateur performance did not take place due to heavy rain, which forced the festival delegates to scatter to their buses.
Planting trees in the park. August 1, 1957: https://pastvu.com/p/13104
Soviet youth, having just freed themselves from the Stalinist cap, for the first time had the opportunity to freely exchange opinions with guests from capitalist countries, hence the fashion for jeans, stylish hairstyles, rock and roll, and individual Komsomol members could not resist even more informal communication with envoys from other continents, which led to the emergence of the phraseological unit “children of the festival.”
Another Moscow festival was held in 1985 at a high ideological level and did not become such an enchanting event. By the beginning of this festival, the landscape composition “Festival Flower” was opened in Friendship Park. The tradition of holding youth forums has survived to this day; the XIX World Festival of Youth and Students is planned to be held in September-October 2017 in Sochi.
Well, all the planted trees took root and Friendship Park is still a favorite walking place for local residents. In 1957, Moscow pioneers solemnly promised to take care of the plantings, but with the abolition of the pioneer organization, this responsibility was transferred to employees of public utilities.
The daisy flowerbed was destroyed in 1977, and in its place a monument to Hungarian-Soviet friendship was erected based on the idea of the Soviet sculptor Vuchetich and the Hungarian Shtorbl (sculptor B. Buza, architects I. Zilahi, I. Fedorov). Since then, many chaotically installed sculptures and memorial signs have appeared on the territory of Friendship Park, which are not directly related to the youth festival movement.
The sculptural compositions “Bread” and “Fertility” were created according to sketches by Vera Mukhina
The “Friendship” monument is the central part of the “Festival Flower” composition
Memorial sign to Nicaraguan revolutionary Carlos Fonseca Amador, who died in 1976
Danish gratitude to the feat of the Soviet Union (1986)
Commemorative plate of the monument to the memory of soldiers killed in Afghanistan
Monument to the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1990)
Monument to the Spanish writer Cervantes (1981, copy of the 1835 sculpture by Antonio Sol). Vandals regularly take Cervantes's sword.
Monument to the Kyrgyz epic hero Manas the Magnanimous - bronze figure of a hero (2012)
Sculptural composition
Tree of Peace
Alley of Alisa Selezneva, heroine of the television film “Guest from the Future” (2001)
Six Festival ponds are connected by channels with bridges across them. After the festival, this part of the park remained wild and only by 1980 it acquired its current appearance - with asphalt paths and concrete banks. The reason for the improvement was the holding of the XXII Olympic Games in Moscow, in which the Dynamo Sports Palace on Lavochkina Street, adjacent to the park, was involved.
Quarries filled with water. 1957-1958: https://pastvu.com/p/13101
Improvement of the ponds is planned for 2016, for which the surrounding area is fenced and passages through the walkways are blocked. The list of planned works includes cleaning of silt and deepening of ponds, reconstruction of the spillway, installation of a feeding water pipeline, repair of the coastline, and improvement of the adjacent territory.
Some of the quarries of the Nikolsky Brickworks were flooded, while others were used as sports grounds for playing rugby and baseball. The park hosted model aircraft competitions and hunting dog tests. Once upon a time, the NKZ brick factory occupied a vast area along the Leningradskoye Shosse and Konakovsky Proezd and worked on its own raw materials, extracting clay from quarries, which later became ponds. The excavation of clay was carried out all year round by dredging machines that moved on rails along the edge of the quarry. In the early 1980s, production began to be curtailed, building up the factory territory with housing, and legally the NKZ ceased to exist in 1998.
Nikolsky Brick Factory is in the background. 1938: https://pastvu.com/p/2929
Notable buildings include the Dynamo Sports Palace on Lavochkina Street and the MATI student dormitory, which was built at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s as the Intourist Hotel, but something went wrong, the facility was abandoned and only later an elevator shaft was added from monolithic reinforced concrete, which balanced the main building.
